The Finance Professionals' Post

How Psychological Pitfalls Generated the Global Financial Crisis

ABSTRACT

The root cause of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 is psychological. In the events which led up to the crisis, heuristics, biases, and framing effects strongly influenced the judgments and decisions of financial firms, rating agencies, elected officials, government regulators, and institutional investors. Examples involving UBS, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Standard & Poor’s, the SEC, and end investors illustrate this point. Among the many lessons to be learned from the crisis is the importance of focusing on the behavioral aspects of organizational process.

Acknowledgments: I thank Mark Lawrence for his insightful comments about UBS; Marc Heerkens from UBS; participants at seminars I gave at the University of Lugano and at the University of California, Los Angeles; and participants in the Executive Master of Science in Risk Management program at the Amsterdam Institute of Finance, a program cosponsored with New York University. I also express my appreciation to Rodney Sullivan and Larry Siegel for their comments on previous drafts.

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